Usain Bolt’s girl does a runner: Jamaican sprinter dumped by British office worker

22 Dec 2012 22:00
Megan Edwards split from the world’s fastest man after he flew her to Jamaica to meet his family

Love on the dancefloor: Usain and Megan on a night out before their split
THE British office girl who ­captured the heart of Olympic champion Usain Bolt during the Games has ended their romance… because he lives too far away.

Megan Edwards, 22, split from the world’s fastest man after he flew her to Jamaica to meet his family.

The down-to-earth accounts worker ­decided that the 4,600 miles between her and the smitten sprinter was too much to handle, and she wouldn’t be able to handle his globe-trotting lifestyle either.

Devastated Usain, 26, begged her to change her mind, but Megan revealed: “In the end I had to let my head rule my heart.

“It was amazing out there, but that’s where I decided it couldn’t go on. He was talking about having to fly here and there and I was going back to my office job.

“So when I got home I rang him and told him it wasn’t going to work. I said the distance thing and not seeing him often enough was a problem for me.

“He was very upset and said ‘Don’t do it, what can I do?’. I told him, ‘There is nothing you can do… you are who you are’.

“I am just a normal girl and I know people say, ‘You would have been fine with it’, but I wouldn’t. If I was a celebrity then our relationship probably would have lasted longer.”

Junior athlete Megan caught the eye of the 100m world record holder when she was chosen to model Jamaica’s team kit for the Games and appeared on a catwalk with him.

Catwalk queen: Usain fell for Megan on the track
Splash
He begged her for her number then ­bombarded her with texts before they went on a string of romantic dates.

Megan told a friend: “I thought he was quiet, very handsome and unassuming. I wasn’t star-struck and maybe he liked that. I didn’t see him as a mega global superstar like everyone else does.

“He was really sweet to talk to, nothing like the shouty show-off you see when he wins a race. Then I thought, ‘Wow, Usain Bolt has asked for my number’. I was shocked.”

The couple were first publicly linked in September after they were spotted at London’s Movida club. By then he had stunned the world with his triple Gold success.

Megan told her friend: “We’d been seeing each other before the story broke but kept it quiet as he was focused on the Olympics. He asked me to see him at his place because it was hard for him to go out in public.

“I would turn up, buzz the door and one of his assistants would come and let me in.

“We’d chill out and watch television or I’d watch him play computer games. He really liked Call of Duty, which is not really my scene but I have younger brothers who play it. The first time I went around there I was pretty nervous. I thought ‘This is Usain Bolt, for God’s sake, the guy probably has girls throwing themselves at him left, right and centre, and he’s with me’.

“I wanted to go on a proper date but he was worried he’d get swamped by fans. He can’t even sit in a restaurant without being asked for his autograph.”

During their secret liaisons the pair began to grow even closer.

“The more I got to know him the more I liked him… it was the same as any successful courtship,” said Megan. “It was exciting. He is a very funny character and made me laugh a lot.”

False start: Megan returned from Jamaica and called the whole thing off
The couple carried on their long distance relationship when Usain left Britain and Megan dared to dream she might have a future with him.

She told her friend: “I did occasionally think about being Mrs Bolt and living in Jamaica with lots of little Bolts. My feelings were pretty strong for him, strong enough that I wanted to go to Jamaica.

“I am quite a reserved person normally and don’t fall in love straight away. I try to protect myself and kept thinking I was possibly competing with 50 other girls. He’s Usain Bolt… he can have anyone.”

She was overjoyed when the track star, who has an estimated personal fortune of more than £30million, invited her to Jamaica.

Megan said: “He asked me to come see him at his home because it was so difficult to get any private time together. He organised everything. I flew first- class which was amazing. I’ve never done that before. I know he is a millionaire and it isn’t much money to him but it was still nice.

“I met lots of his friends and family and his brother. He lives in a big house in Jamaica with a big garden and swimming pool and a massive bath upstairs, which I guess he needs because he is so tall.

“We went out to restaurants – well, more like shacks – but it’s what they have in Jamaica. We would go out at 1 or 2am to nightclubs and we danced to reggae until 6am, drinking lemonade and cranberry juice to keep cool.”

Although it was only a short trip, Megan, who runs for Dartford Harriers Club in Kent, tried to keep herself in shape.

“He took me to the University of West Indies where he trains,” she said.

“He would drive me in the morning and sit and wait while I finished my session and then we would go back to the house for lunch. He had a chef who prepares his food for him, but I think most wealthy people in Jamaica do and we were only eating rice and peas really.

“He has a much more relaxed life there. It’s a tiny island and people are used to seeing him. He doesn’t get bothered.”

Under the spotlight: Usain and Megan
But while she was there, level-headed Megan began to think about what their future together would be like.

“We live at opposite ends of the globe,” she told a friend. “He talked about flying all over the place and there’s me having to go back to Dartford.

“I really liked him, but I only have a set amount of holiday that I can use each year and I’mnot going to use it all up going to see Usain Bolt in Jamaica.

“A few things crystallised in my head while I was away and when I got back. So after a couple of days I telephoned him to call it off. It was very hard and I was upset too.

“In the end he asked if we could still be friends and I said, ‘Of course… you haven’t done anything wrong to me’. I don’t think he was expecting it.

“It wasn’t as though it fizzled out. It was just at this present moment in time we are, neither of us, in the right place.

“And I told him that it wasn’t right for us to be together right now and that it just wasn’t going to work out between us.”

Now Megan is concentrating on her own Olympic dream, taking inspiration from the boyfriend she had to let go.

“I hope to go to Rio in 2016 and do the 800or 1500 metres,” she said. “Perhaps Usain will be there too…”

Banton is serving a 10-year prison sentence for his convictions on cocaine conspiracy and trafficking charges stemming from a 2009 arrest. The Grammy winner faces an additional five years for his conviction on a related gun possession charge, but his resentencing hearing was postponed to investigate the report of juror misconduct.

Banton’s attorneys have filed a motion in Tampa federal court seeking a new trial. If granted, it would be the second mistrial for Banton, whose first trial in 2010 ended with jurors deadlocked. He was convicted in 2011 in his second trial.

U.S. District Judge James Moody reserved judgment Thursday on the defense motion.

Jurors were told during the trial not to do any independent research into the case. Terri Wright, a juror from Banton’s 2011 trial, was quoted in a Miami New Times report as saying that she researched parts of the case even though the judge had ordered jurors not to.

“I would get in the car, just write my notes down so I could remember, and I would come home and do the research,” Wright was quoted as saying.

New Times reporter Chris Sweeney testified Thursday that he interviewed several jurors. Sweeney also provided the court with a recording of his interview with Wright.

Wright testified that she sent Sweeney a text message after seeing his story, saying there had been “a huge misunderstanding with (Sweeney’s) questions.” Wright’s text message also read, “I did not violate the judge’s instructions with this case. I did my research AFTER the case was over and the verdict was given, NOT during the case. . I trusted you and now feel totally betrayed.”

Wright testified that she only researched Banton’s music and the federal Pinkerton rule, which involves liability among conspirators for the actions of other conspirators.

There was no proof that Banton possessed a gun or was aware that a co-defendant did, but because of the Pinkerton rule, Banton was convicted of a weapons offense. Moody tossed the gun charge, but an appeals court reversed that decision.

Wright said she told Sweeney that she had been a juror seven times before serving on Banton’s case, but she did not volunteer that information to prosecutors or Banton’s attorneys “because that wasn’t a question” during jury selection.

Moody called a sampling of three other jurors to ask if they remembered hearing other jury members talk about doing outside research. Two testified that had not heard anything, but one said she recalled a white female juror saying she had researched the Pinkerton law. Wright is black.

Assistant U.S. Attorney James Preston said Banton’s defense had not met the legal requirement for a mistrial by showing that the jury was exposed to outside evidence that posed a reasonable possibility of prejudice to the defendant.

Defense lawyer Chokwe Lumumba said jurors were ready to acquit Banton, whose real name is Mark Myrie, before Wright shared her research.

Banton is popular in his native Jamaica and won a Grammy for his last album before his drug conviction.

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